Interesting Students!

As you know, I'm an English teacher, I have about 25 students, most of them come to my home to learn English. I get to know many interesting people as my job is to talk to them in English and make them speak as much as they can to practice their English. Above you can see Antonio and Lísia Machado, they are a very nice couple, he is a law student and she is a civil servant. Antônio was born in Portugal but grew up in Brasil. We have many good conversations about life in English. In this picture we are playing scrable with Matt!

This is Loreta Freitas, she is a Biology professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. She needs English because she is working in a project with the Unicersity of Bern in Switzerland. As we were talking in English about our lives, I found out that she belonged to the church of Christ when she was a child, her belated father, Joffre Freitas used to work at the American Consulate in Porto Alegre and befriended with Allen Dutton, she used to play with Allen Jr. and the Signoretts brothers that come to our house church. She said that she wants to bring her mother to our house church on a Sunday in the sake of the old times. She also said that she still remembers her Sunday classes with Maria Dutton when she was 3 or 4 years old!

I am glad that God has been using my work as an instrument to bring people back!

Please, pray for my students!

God Bless you!

Refreshment!

I would like to thank the Continent of Great Cities for the wonderful conference for the missionary women which was held on the first week of november in Maresias, São Paulo. It was good to have a time to reflect about my role in the church, although I am not a "professional" missionary, I found out that I am one by heart. Georgia Freitas did a very good job by organizing this conference for us! Becky Holton was my counsoler, we had really meaninful conversations in our small group. It is wonderful to feel accepted and expected to go! I also thank Juaneyla and Nádia from Viamão for insisting me to go!
I didn't take my camera so when I receive more picture I will put some in my blog to share with you. Unfurtunately on the second day I was bitten by a moskito on the sole of my foot, I had to go to an emergency room and get some medication and couldn't walk for the rest of the week. :(
But anyway, it was fun! At least I walked by the entire sea shore on the first day!
I am glad I had a talk with Dorris Schulz , now I am back with lots of plans for our house church !
Gotta go now! Please keep praying for our challenges down here!
Love,

Waleska

This is my niece Mariah, she only 2 years and half. We love to make cookies together!

She's a great assistant! She loves to help me in the kitchen!

Look, she even break the eggs and add them to the dough! Isn't it cute?

We love to spend time together! I am already practicing to be a mother in the future! :)

Women's retreat

In the end of October we had our yearly women's retreat. It was a blessing to spend time with our sisters in Christ. The topic of the retreat was "women praying".

This is Lorena and I studying the bible together, she's been in the church for more than 20 years, I suppose. I always learn a lot from her.

The retreat was on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Many women could only attend it on Saturday, so on this day we had around fifty women. It was a time for sharing, learning, and renewal! It was also special because it was the first retreat prepared by the Brazilians with a little help from the missionaries! It was a victory. And now they feel more confident, as they can't always depend on missionary work!

This is Nádia, my sister and friend in Christ, she was invited to give a class! She is always there for us, even though we belong to different congragations!

This is my sister and friend Clarice, her class was very good! As she is a doctor at the emergency room in the hospital she could testify how her prayers are answered in such an enviroment of death.

Everybody came home from this retreat spiritually renewed and ready to pass this message on!

News!
Next Year the congration of Viamão and I are preparing a special women's retreat. It will be on May 1st, 2nd and 3rd next year. The difference is that it will be national. We are inviting the women of all the congrations in Brazil. It is supposed to be a big event to reunite the sister in Christ. I would like to invite you to be part of that by donating small gifts to be given as a treat for each day. It can be note pads, pens, lipsticks, etc. Matt and I will be in our Furlough during the months of January and February. If you are interested in contributing somehow, please contact us at 4th avenue church! We really appreciate it!

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.(1 Peter 4:10)

Couples's meetings!

God has blessed us with many good meetings! We have all been learning a lot from each other. We usually meet at a different home every month to talk about marriage life through the bible. We chat, we eat, we have fun, we strengthen our bonds. The meetings are not only for our house church, all the couples are invited to come, some couples come from far away, like our friends from Viamão! It's been a great blessing working with couples! Please pray for our ministry!

Tholl Circus

Sometimes I take a weekend off and visit my sister and my niece in the country, this last weekend we went to the circus. Isn't my niece really cute? This group started about 15 years ago with very poor kids, some of them didn't even have money to take the bus to go trainning, some were even living on the street. So the director of the show invested on their talent against all odds and difficulties. Now they're pretty famous all over Brasil, their show is kind of expensive, however. They are fully booked until the end of December, they even have a contract with a channel TV. This is an example that everything is possible if we have iniciative, and work hard for our goals.

Here is a link to some of their video presentation on You tube, I hope you enjoy it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfZPpGHCYl0&feature=related

Teaching the Bible!

This is our bible study group. These girls are friends of my sister Patrícia. I met them at my nephew birthday party (which is in this blog below). Then I had the idea of inviting them to study the bible with Matt and I. As I have always wanted my sister to go to the church and she had always refused to, I decided to get to her through her friends, and amazingly they accepted the invitation and Patrícia feels comfortable among them! BINGO! :)
Now, we meet every Saturday, we have a cake or cookies and have a nice time! I wanted to reach my sister, and God gave us 4 more girls. We gave bibles for everyone, they didn't even have a bible, we are teaching from the beginning. Please pray for this ministry. If we can reach at least one of them, it is already a great victory, although it has a great possibility to become a new house church!

Pastor Dreher

Now you can know a little bit more about my roots. I grew up in the Lutheran church. And I was influenced by the minister Carlos Dreher, who on July 20th celebrated 40 years of ministry at the church. He is a very open minded minister willing to know about other religions. He believes that we can all live in harmony in spite of our differences, he has many different friends in the Catholic, Methodist, and Protestant churches. He believes that we are all brothers besides the denomination of the church. That's why when I met Matt I didn't have any kind of prejudice about the Church of Christ and gladly accepted to be part of this family. We thank him for opening the doors of the Lutheran church to celebrate our wedding and give a space for a Church of Christ minister to speak. I thank God that we have people like him in the world leading a community of Christians without any prejudice and willing to accept other people as brothers.
I remember him asking me why I was leaving the Lutheran church for the Church of Christ, then I answered him: I fell in love! So he understood! :)

My Spanish Class!

This is Gabriela, my Spanish teacher, she's from Uruguay, so her Spanish is the original. :) We met around 10 years ago at the university, we both did languages with different major, mine was English/Portuguese and hers Spanish/Portuguese. I hope someday she can be part of our house church! We were celebrating her birthday in this class! :)
These are my classmates! We are finishing the second semester of Spanish. I'm glad I still have time to grow and learn more and more! At the same time I meet more people, and have more chances to talk about our house church! Wish me luck at the sapanish test!

folk music show!

This is a part of a World folk music show we had been and want to share with those who have been to brazil and want to relive special memories. Please check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdBJHRR4eoM

Enjoy it!

Cassiano`s birthday June 13th

Matt and his birhthday nephew! Aren`t they cute?

This month we had our nephew birthday to celebrate. He is a cute little boy of 2 years old. We celebrated the date along with my two sisters Patricia and Carlota and the lovely Mariah, Carolota`s daughter, on the right. Matt and I are his godparents! :)

couples` meeting! May 24th

Hi, Our couples ministry is doing well! Again I didn't take any pictures cause I forgot to take my camera! :( Two dear friends opened their new house for Christ, Joao and Clarice Spencer! We had 6 couples, and two non-Christians husbands. We talked about finances, one of the topics that cause arguements in the marriage life. We finished the night with hamburgers made by our brother Lauro, and soft drinks and with a good surprise, one of the non-Christian husbands offered to open his house for the next meeting! I hope it is a good sign! Love, Waleska

Game night

One of my projects as a missionary's wife is to use my acquaintances at work to introduce Matt, and get to know my students better. On Friday, May 23, we had a game night at home in English. As you can see we played Scrable, it is not a very common game in Brazil, so my students can learn more about the American culture, I also made some American cookies to complete the night! We hope to have events like this once a month with my advanced students!

Ah! I was sooo involved in the game that I forgot to take a picture of the group! ;)

Rotary meeting with my students

On May 20, I had lunch with my students at the Rotary Club in Cachoeirinha, a city near Porto Alegre. The one in the picture above on the left wearing glasses is my student, he is the current president of the Rotary Club. So he needs English.
That week, he and his wife received a group from the USA, and invited me to cooperate. They are professionals who come to Brazil to exchange experiences about culture, so I could help with that. Since most of them were Spanish, English and Portuguese teachers, I just had to tell them how I work here in Brazil.
This is me and Mara, she is also my student, with the ladies from the US. We had a great time, and I could know my students better. Little by little I get to know my students. I just wait for the right time!
Tha's my personality! I love meeting new people, knowing about other cultures, I love to learn other languages, right now, I am in the second semester of studying Spanish at CLEP, the school where I used to teach. I am enjoying it a lot!
I hope I can use my gift to reach more and more people!
Please, pray for this couple, Mara and Luis! They are very hardworking and a very nice couple!
May God bless this work!

Couples' retreat!

On May 10th we had a couples' retreat with the team in Viamao. As I had said before I love this Team we are always keeping in contact and helping each other whenever we can. We went to this retreat to learn from them, and have a retreat with our couples in the future!

Rui and Nadia leading the study group! I think they`re great!

Afterwards we had a lovely and romantic boat ride through the famous "Lagoa dos Patos" (Ducks' lagoon) the biggest lagoon in Brazil!

On the left we had a morning meeting by the river where we could have a word and share our thoughts about God and Nature!

My birthday girl!

On Monday we celebrated my niece's second birthday! Tomorrow we are going to the countryside to visit her! I hope that in the near future I can have a daughter as beautiful as she is! Ah! She is also our Goddaughter! :)

Happy birthday for my mom!

This last Sunday ( May 25) was my mom`s birthday. She is a great example of a mother should be! We had difficult times together as a family, we had our losses, she became a widow at a very young age, and had to raise us all alone, she continued to have faith in the future, and she always took us to the church! She is a woman who follows her dreams! Right now she is studying English in the USA (one of her dreams of 30 years ago) and will be back in a few months! I can't imagine my life without her strength! God bless her! :)

Developing Friendships!

This is Raquel! She has gone to our church for 4 years. She was there in the beginning of my relationship with Matt. She is going to our house church with her mom, she is in her 20s, the only young lady in our house besides me! We have always had a friendly relationship, but now, I think I'm touching her heart somehow; she's very nice, but difficult to open up and share about herself. Now we are spending more time together, I can understand her heart better! We have very funny and good moments as sisters! Please pray for this relationship! :)

April 26th Couple`s meeting!

This time, I didn`t take any pictures because I forgot to recharge my batteries. I feel bad because I like to give an illustrated report about our work here in Brasil!

Anyway, I chose the picture above to represent the couples! We had a great time in our apartment last saturday. We talked abou finances using the bible as our guide. It was very rewarding , everybody participated and shared experiences. It is also a great opportunities some for Christian women with non-Christian husbands. They go to these meeting just to please their wives and they ended up enjoying, participating, and interacting with other members. These men don`t like to go to the worships, at the same time they don`t refuse a couple`s meeting!

Now, I see that preparing these meetings is more important than I thought!

Please, keep praying for our working here! We are doing our best to serve our brothers in Christ!

Another birthday girl!

April is a month when many special people have birthdays. This is Grace and she is turning 21. I actually saw her growing up, more than that, I feel part of what she became. I met her when she was 14 years old. I was her English teacher at a language center. Yes, I used to work with teenagers, they kind of liked me; some of them, including Grace, even went to my wedding! I feel special about Grace because we identify with each other, she had her difficult times during adolescence, and one day she came and said to me that during her classes with me she could escape from her troubles, the English classes were a motive for her to overcome her difficulties. So I realized that I wasn't just teaching, I was making a difference in her life. We had a play in English "Romeo and Juliet" and she was my Juliet, as sweet as she can be, as a student she was my proud and joy, as her English is also perfect!,
To my surprise she is following my steps, she was approved at the federal university, and she is studying languages, the same course and university I went to. In 2005 we had a program at the church called LST (Let`s start talking) for teenagers. I invited all the teenagers of the language center, including Grace, she was charmed by bible studies in English, and by the people she met. She made good friends, she visited some missionaries in the US. And she was finally baptized last year!

This is her mom, Ivoli! She is also coming to one of our house churches, she and her husband haven't decided yet about being baptized, but Grace already did the first step! As a teacher and evangelist I feel that my mission is accomplished with Grace!

Ah! She also wants to be a teacher and work with English, just like me! Maybe we can work together sometime!

The message that I get from this story is that every act is important, I try to be the most patient teacher I can be, and work with love, maybe I can influence my students with my example!

I thank God for Grace`s life! She makes me want to do more and continue my mission next to Matt!

Kids` ministry

These are our only two kids in our kids class, Joao and Mateus! The teacher is Branda Signoretti, she is always willing to help us, although she works full time in a bank, doing a post-graduation course, and she is also the mother of two teenage guys, Guilherme and Wagner, she finds time to think of the others! She is serving the lord according to her gift. She will be teaching the bible for Joao, we have a nice book that he can follow. It is like having a private class, as she is using my office!
The teenagers in our group take turns to entertain Mateus while we have the message. They use my dinning room for drawing and playing with bible related toys! Please pray for this ministry.

We are all trying to get envolved and serve one another! Branda said that she is doing this because Matt and Joao Spencer are giving a special attention to her two sons., they were raised in the church and still haven`t decided on their baptism yet (One more thing to pray about)!

My birthday!

I would like to share with you a special day that I had, it is my birthday. It was 10 days ago, April 1st, yes, that's right, April fool's day, at least it is a difficult date to forget! :)
I had not planned anything special, and wasn't expecting anything either. Just a normal working day. Also because my husband went on a silent retreat with other ministers, I could not be that selfish and not let him go, after all love is letting the other person be happy, love is selflessness!
Anyway, I worked in the morning and during my break I went to Skype to talk to my parents-in-law. I think they were looking forward to talking to me! We opened the presents together! They had sent me a box of presents through mail. It was actually nice to be able to share my happiness with them through the technology of internet where we are able to see and talk at real time. That was my first surprise of the day!


These are the flowers that Matt sent to me in the afternoon! He also called me in secret breaking the regulations of the silent retreat. Isn't that special?

This is my other special surprise! In the afternoon I went to teach Portuguese to my oldest student and friend, Blanka Muller, her birthday was on April 4th. Her maid and she had prepared a table with specialties and a cake to celebrate our birthday!
It was really special that she did this for me. I was celebrating my 31 years and she was turning 95. I wish we weren`t so far apart in terms of age. We have lots of things in common!
Then, as classical, we finished our afternoon with a nice glass of fine champagne! God Bless our lives! :)

Then I went to a mini amusement park in the shopping center and played with my nephew Cassiano. We had a very good time!
I really play like a kid. I love to play video games but I don't usually have time for that kind of fun!
This is my younger sister Patricia, she is the mother of Cassiano!

Later, another suprise! My sister Carlota came from the countryside to have dinner with us. She brought her daughter Mariah to complete my happiness!
We had pizza to celebrate, we talked, we laughed, we had fun! It had been a while since the last time we got together!

Aren't they cuuuuuuute! They were my best presents, my goddaughter and godson!

But it was not over! Next day Matt was back and he took me to my favorite restaurant: Dado Garden. There we planned our next adventure together: our trip to Iguaçu Falls to celebrate our two-year-anniversary! To be continued...

So that was my day, it might be a fool's day for some, but I had lots of love!

God bless you all. Keep praying for our mission in Brazil!